Law Commons^™

A Case For Zoning, Christopher Serkin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Due to a remarkable convergence of criticisms from both the right and the left, zoning is under more sustained attack than at any time in the last seventy-five years. A consensus is building that zoning is what ails America. Simultaneously, the traditional justifications for zoning like separating incompatible uses, have become increasingly anachronistic in an age of mixed-use development and a desire for vibrant, dynamic places. This Article offers an updated defense of zoning, and in particular density regulations. Today, local governments deploy zon- ing not primarily to keep industry (or apartment buildings) out of residential neighborhoods, but to preserve …